The Agrarian Programme of Social-Democracy in the First Russian Revolution, 1905-1907

9. The Social-Democrats

Ofthe eight Social-Democratic speeches on the agrarian
question in the Second Duma only two contained adefenceof
municipalisation and not merely a reference to it. One was that of Ozol,
and the other the second speech of Tsereteli. The rest of the speeches
consisted mainly, almost exclusively, of attacks on landlordism in general,
and of explanations of the political aspect of the agrarian
question. Highly characteristic in this respect was the artless speech
delivered by the Right peasant Petrochenko (22nd session, April 5, 1907),
which expressed the general impression made on a rural deputy by the
spokesmen of the different parties. “I will not waste your time by
going over what has been said here; permit me to put it in simple
words. Deputy Svyatopolk-Mirsky made a long speech here. Evidently, that
speech was meant to prepare us for something. Briefly, it amounts to this:
you have no right to take the land which belongs to me, or which I possess,
and I will not give it up. In answer to this Deputy Kutler said:

‘Those times have gone, you must give it up, do so and you will be paid for
it’. Deputy Dmowski says:

‘Do what you like with the land, but we must have autonomy, without
fail’. At the same time Deputy Karavayev says:

‘We need both, but throw everything in one heap and later on we’ll share it
out’. Tsereteli says:

‘No, gentlemen, we cannot share it out because the old government still
exists and it will not permit it. Better for us to try to seize power and
then we can share out as we please’" (p. 1615).

Thus,this peasant grasped what he found to be the only distinction between the
speech of the Social-Democrat and that of the Trudovik, namely, that the former
explained the necessity of fighting for power in the state, of “seizing
power”. He failed to grasp the other distinctions—theydid not seem important to him! In his first speech Tsereteli did, indeed,
expose the fact that “our bureaucratic aristocracy is also a landed
aristocracy” (725). The speaker showed that “for several
centuries the state authority handed out into private ownership land that
belonged to the whole state, land that was the property of the whole
people” (724). The statement he made at the end of his speech on
behalf of the Social-Democratic group, which was a recapitulation of our
agrarian programme, was not backed by any argument, and was not contrasted
to the programmes of the other “Left” parties. We are saying
this not in order to blame anybody; on the contrary, we think that
Tsereteli’s first speech, a short, lucid speech which concentrated on
explaining the class character of the landlord government, was a very good
one. We are saying this in order to explain why the Right peasant (and
probably all the peasants) failed to see the specifically Social-Democratic
features of our programme.

Thesecond Social-Democratic speech on the agrarian question was delivered at
the next “agrarian session” of the Duma (16th session, March 26,
1907) by a worker Fomichov (Taurida Gubernia), who often used the words:

“we peasants”. Fomichov made a stinging retort to Svyatopolk-Mirsky,
whose famous phrase that the peasants without the landlords are “a flock
without a shepherd” did more to stir up the peasant deputies than a number
of other Left speeches. “Deputy Kutler, in a lengthy speech, expounds ed
the idea of compulsory alienation, but with compensation. We, the
representatives of the peasants, cannot agree to compensation because it will be
another noose round the necks of the peasants” (1113). Fomichov ended up
by demanding that “all the land be handed over to the working people on
the terms proposed by Deputy Tsereteli” (1114).

Thenext speech was delivered by Izmailov, also a worker, who was elected by the
peasant curia in Novgorod Gubernia (18th session, March 29, 1907). He replied
to the peasant Bogatov, his fellow-deputy from Novgorod, who, in the name of the
Novgorod peasants, had agreed to compensation. Izmailov indignantly opposed
compensation. He spoke of the terms of the “emancipation” of the
Novgorod peasants who, out of ten million dessiatins of arable land,had received two million dessiatins, and out of six million dessiatins of
forest, land had received only one million dessiatins. He described the
poverty of the peasants who have been reduced to such a state that not
only “have they used the fences round their huts for decades to heat
their stoves”, but “saw off the corners of their own
huts”; “out of big old huts they build small ones in order,
when rebuilding, to save a log or two for firewood” (1344). “In
face of these conditions, under which our peasants live, the gentle men on
the Right sigh for culture. In their opinion, culture has been
killed by the muzhik, you see. But can a cold and hungry peasant think of
culture? Instead of land they want to offer him this culture; but I
don’t trust them here either, I think they, too, will be
glad to sell their land, only they will bargain to make the peasant pay
dearly for it. That’s why they agree. In my opinion—and the peasants
particularly should know this—it is not a question of the
land, gentlemen. I think I shall not be mistaken
in saying that there is something else behind this land, some other kind
of power, which the feudal nobility are afraid to hand over to the people,
are afraid to lose together with the land. I mean political power,
gentlemen. They are willing to give up the land, and they will do so, but
in such a way that we remain their slaves as of old. If we fall into debt
we shall never free ourselves from the power of the feudal
landlords” (l345). It is difficult to imagine anything more striking
and apt than this exposure by a worker of the essence of the Cadets’ plans!

TheSocial-Democrat Serov, during the 20th-session, April 2, 1907,
mainly criticised the views of the Cadets, as the “representatives of
capital” (1492), “representatives of capitalist
landownership”. He quoted detailed figures showing what redemption meant
in 1861 and rejected the “elastic principle” of a fair
Valuation. Serov, from the Marxist standpoint, gave a faultlessly correct
answer to Kutler’s argument that it was impossible to confiscate the land
without confiscating capital. “We do not at all put forward the argument
that the land is nobody’s, that the land is not the creation of human
hands” (1497). “having achieved self-consciousness, the proletariat,
represented here by the Social-Democratic Party, rejects all forms of
exploitation,both feudal and bourgeois. As far as the proletariat is concerned, the
question which of these two forms of exploitation is more just does not exist;
the question always before it is: are the historical conditions ripe for
emancipation from exploitation?” (1499.) “According to the
calculations of the statisticians, if the land is confiscated up to 500,000,000
rubles, representing the unearned incomes of the landlords, will pass to the
people. The peasants will, of course, use this income to improve their farms, to
expand production, and to increase consumption” (1498).

Atthe 22nd session of the Duma (April 5, 1907), speeches on the
agrarian question were delivered by Anikin and Alexinsky. The former
stressed the connection between “the higher bureaucracy and big
landownership” and argued that the struggle for freedom could not be
separated from the struggle for land. The latter, in a lengthy speech,
explained the feudal character of the labour-service system of farming that
predominates in Russia. The speaker thus expounded the basis of the Marxist
view of the peasants’ struggle against, landlordism, and then showed the
dual role played by the village commune (a “survival of olden
times” and an “apparatus for influencing the landlords’
estates”), and the purpose of the laws of November 9 and 15, 1906 (to
align the kulaks with the landlords as a “main stay”). The
speaker gave figures showing that “the peasants’ land hunger means
the nobility’s land surfeit” and explained that the Cadets’
scheme for “compulsory” alienation meant “coercing the
people for the benefit of the landlords” (1635). Alexinsky quoted the
“Cadet organRech” (1639), which had admitted the
Cadet truth that it wanted the land lords to predominate on the proposed
land committees. The Cadet Tatarinov, who spoke at the next session but one
after Alexinsky, was thus driven into a corner, as we have already seen.

Ozol’sspeech at the 39th session (May 16, 1907) is an example of
the arguments, unworthy of Marxists, to which some of our Social-Democrats
have been driven by Maslov’s famous “criticism” of
Marx’s theory of rent and by his corresponding distortion of the
concept of nationalisation of the land. Ozol argued against the S.R.’s as
follows:

Their “Bill is hopeless, in my opinion, for it proposes toabolish private ownership of the means of production, in this case of the
land, while preserving private ownership of factory buildings, and not only
of factory buildings, but also of the dwellings and structures. On page 2
of the Bill we read that all the buildings erected on the land, and
exploited on capitalist lines, are to remain private property; but every
private owner will say: Be so good as to pay all the expenses for the
nationalised lands, for paving the streets, and so forth, and I will
receive rent from these houses. This is not nationalisation, but simply an
easier means of receiving capitalist income in the most developed
capitalist form” (667).

Sothere it is, this Maslovism! First, it repeats the banal argument of
the Rights and the Cadets that it is impossible to abolish feudal
exploitation without affecting bourgeois exploitation as well. Secondly, it
reveals amazing ignorance of political economy; the “rent” from
urban houses, etc.,containsthe lion’s shareof ground
rent. Thirdly, our “Marxist”, following Maslov, entirely
forgets about (or denies?)  absolute rent. Fourthly, it appears as though aMarxistrejects the desirability of “the most developed
capitalist form” advocated by a Socialist-Revolutionary! Pearls of
Maslov’s municipalisation.

Tsereteli,in a lengthy concluding speech (47th session, May 26, 1907),
defended municipalisation more thought fully, of course, than Ozol did; but
it was Tsereteli’s pains taking, thoughtful, and lucid defence that
most glaringly revealed the utter fallacy of the municipalisers’ chief
arguments.

Tsereteli’scriticism of the Right deputies at the beginning of
his speech was quite correct from the political angle. His remarks about
the charlatans of liberalism, who were trying to scare the people with the
bogey of upheavals like the French Revolution, were magnificent. “He
[Shingaryov] forgets that it was after the confiscation of the landlords’
estates and because of it that France was regenerated for a new and
vigorous life” (1228). Quite correct too was Tsereteli’s chief
slogan: “the complete abolition of landlordism and the complete
liquidation of the landlord bureaucratic regime” (1224). But as soon
as he proceeded to deal with the Cadets, the erroneous position of
Menshevism,made itself felt. “The principle of compulsory alienation of the
land,” said Tsereteli, “is, objectively, the principle of the
movement for liberation, but not all those who stand for this principle are
aware of, or want to admit, all the necessary implications of this
principle” (1225). That is the fundamental view of Menshevism,
namely, that the “watershed” of the major political divisions
in our revolution runs right of the Cadets and not left, as we
believe. That this view is wrong is abundantly made clear by
Tsereteli’s lucid formula, for after the experience of 1861 it is
beyond dispute that compulsory alienation is possible together with the
predominance of the landlords’ interests, with the preservation of theirrule, with the imposition of a new form of bondage. Still more
fallacious was Tsereteli’s statement that “on the question of the
forms of land tenure, we [Social-Democrats] are farther removed from
them” (the Narodniks) than from the Cadets (1230). The speaker then
went on to criticise labour and subsistence “norms”. In this he
was a thousand times right, but the stand taken by the Cadetson this
questionisnot a bit betterthan that of the Trudoviks, for
the Cadets misuse “norms” far more. That is not all. The fuss
the Cadets are making about the stupid “norms” is a result of
their bureaucratic outlook and of their tendencyto betraythe
peasants. As for the peasants, “norms” were brought to them
from outside by the Narodnik intellectuals; and we have seen above, from
the example of the deputies in the First Duma, Chizhevsky and Poyarkov, how
trenchantly the practical people from the rural districts criticise all
“norms”. Had the Social-Democrats explainedthisto
the peasant deputies, had they moved an amendment to the Trudovik Bill
repudiating norms, had they theoretically explained the significance of
nationalisation, which has nothing in common with “norms”,
they, the Social-Democrats, would have become the leaders of the peasant
revolution as against the liberals. The stand taken by Menshevism, however,
is that of subordinating the proletariat to liberal influence. It was
particularly strange to say in the Second Duma that we Social-Democrats are
farther removed from the Narodniks, since the Cadets declaredin favourof restricting the sale and mortgaging
of land!

Proceedingto criticise nationalisation, Tsereteli adduced three
arguments;

(1) “an army of officials”,

(2) “gross injustice to the small nationalities”,

(3) “in the event of restoration” “a weapon would be
placed in the hands of the enemy of the people” (1232).

That is a conscientious exposition of the views of those who secured the
adoption of our Party programme, and as a Party man, Tsereteli had to
expound those views. We have shown above how untenable those views are and
how superficial this exclusively political criticism is.

Insupport of municipalisation Tsereteli adduced six arguments:

(1) under municipalisation “the actual expenditure of these resources
[i.e., rent] to meet the people’s 1!] needs will be ensured”
(sic! p. 1233)—an optimistic assertion;

(2) “the municipalities will strive to improve the conditions of the
unemployed”—as, for example, in democratic and decentralised America
(?);

(3) “the municipalities can take over these [big] farms and organise
model farms”, and

(4) “during an agrarian crisis ... will lease land free of charge to
landless, propertyless peas ants” (sic! p. 1234). This is
demagogy. worse than that of the S.R.’s; it is a programme of
petty-bourgeois socialism in a bourgeois revolution.

(5) “A bulwark of democracy”—like Cossack local
self-government;

(6) “the alienation of allotment land ... may give rise to a
frightful counter revolutionary movement”—probably against the will
of all the peasants who declared for nationalisation.

Sumand substance of the speeches of the Social-Democrats in the Second Duma:
leading role on the question of compensation and of the connection between
landlordism and the present state power, and an agrarian programme that slips
into Cadetism, betraying failure to understand the economic and political
conditions of the peasant revolution.

Sumand substance of the entire debate on the agrarian question in the Second
Duma: the Right landlords displayed the clearest understanding of their class
interests, the most distinct conception of both the economic and political
conditions needed for the preservation of their class rule in bourgeois
Russia. In effect, the liberals aligned themselves with these landlords and
sought to betray thepeasants to them by the most despicable and hypocritical methods. The
Narodnik intellectuals introduced in the peasant programmes a touch of
bureaucracy and philistine moralising. The peasants,, in the most vigorous
and forth right manner, expressed the spontaneous revolutionariness of
their struggle against all the survivals of medievalism, and against all
forms of medieval landownership, although they lacked a sufficiently clear
conception of the political conditions of this struggle and naïvely
idealised the “promised land” of bourgeois freedom. The
bourgeois nationals aligned themselves with the peasants’ struggle more or
less timidly, being greatly imbued with the narrow views and prejudices
that are engendered by the insularity of the small nationalities. The
Social-Democrats resolutely championed the cause of the peasant revolution
and explained the class character of the present state power, but they were
unable to lead the peasant revolution consistently owing to the erroneous
character of the Party’s agrarian programme.